Audio of Lee Atwater's infamous 1981 interview on the Southern Strategy unearthed

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Dug up by James Carter IV

Poppy Bush's top operative and Karl Rove's mentor spells out the Republican plan to win the votes of southern racists for a generation.

Keep this one in mind any time Hannity, Coulter or any GOP hack tries to claim the GOP was really the party of civil rights.

More background on this at The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy?_r=hpyr

The back-story goes like this. In 1981, Atwater, after a decade as South Carolina's most effective Republican operative, was working in Ronald Reagan's White House when he was interviewed by Alexander Lamis, a political scientist at Case Western Reserve University. Lamis published the interview without using Atwater's name in his 1984 book The Two-Party South. Fifteen years later—and eight years after Atwater passed away from cancer—Lamis republished the interview in another book using Atwater’s name. For seven years no one paid much attention. Then the New York Times' Bob Herbert, a bit of an Atwater obsessive, quoted it in an October 6, 2005 column—then five more times over the next four years.

Those words soon became legend—quoted in both screeds (The GOP-Haters Handbook, 2007) and scholarship (Corey Robin's 2011 classic work of political theory, The Reactionary Mind). Google Books records its use in ten books published so far this year alone. Curious about the remarks' context, Carter, who learned Lamis had died in 2012, asked his widow if she would consider releasing the audio of the interview, especially in light of the use of race-baiting dog-whistles (lies about Obama ending work requirements for welfare; "jokes" about his supposed Kenyan provenance) in the Romney presidential campaign. Renée Lamis, an Obama donor, agreed that very same night. For one thing she was “upset,” Carter told me, that “for some time, conservatives believed [her] husband made up the Atwater interview.” For another, she was eager to illustrate that her husband's use of the Atwater quote was scholarly, not political.

[blueknight]

1. he was a no good

race baiting,disgusting asshole. and any suffering he had before he died can be attributed to karma

[freshwest]

2. Thanks for posting, this needs to go viral. Make people decide if they want to continue with Repigs.

I'd say:

Stand up for this, and be judged. By whoever it is that you call God or right or wrong. This is sick, and it's anti-American. No more flag waving over the destruction of the ideals of the Founding Fathers and those who died for equality. Teahadists, take note, this condemns you.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

5. +1000 nt

[mrsadm]

3. I am not one bit surprised

Also nice that it was found by James Carter IV

[ailsagirl]

4. Outrageous and depressing

I saw the Frontline program about Atwater and it was very much a downer. The program itself was excellently crafted in terms of chronicling Atwater's life, but that life was appalling and depressing both.

http://www.boogiemanfilm.com/

Winner of the national Edward R. Murrow Award, the Polk Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the International Documentary Association’s Donnet Award, Boogie Man has been called one of the best political documentaries ever made.

[enough]

6. Living history. (nt)

[heaven05]

7. same strategy

campaign 2012. Didn't work, thank god. But same racist strategy. evil people the repigs-dogshit.

[MynameisBlarney]

8. Wow

That's just totally fucked up.

And thank you James Carter IV!

[editor5]

9. A rare glimpse into the republican mind

racist through and through

[KansDem]

10. Correct me if I'm wrong...

...but didn't Reagan, when he was campaigning in the South, "woo" southern Democrats by saying, "Come over to our side!" (?) I initially thought he meant leave the Democratic Party and join with the Republicans.

But now it sounds like he was meaning, "Come over to our (white) side!"

Anyone else remember this campaign strategy?

[noiretextatique]

11. i remember reagan's not-so-subtle appeal to racism

i remember it very clearly. "morning in america," etc